In 1981, Dr. Ben Young was reviewing applications for JABSOM's next medical school class when one candidate caught his attention. He already had a law degree and wasn’t your typical applicant.
"He was so unusual, so mature, had such great leadership capabilities," Young recalled.
More than four decades later, that humble applicant, Sam Shomaker, would become dean of the school, the first JABSOM graduate to lead the school. On July 17, 2026, Shomaker stood beside Young as his portrait was unveiled in JABSOM’s Medical Education Building lobby.
"Ben took a chance on me," Shomaker said. "I was a nontraditional student. I was a practicing attorney and decided I wanted to go to medical school."
Shomaker says Young’s support changed his life.
"It is due in large part to him that I ultimately became a physician and am standing before you now as the dean of this medical school," Shomaker said.
The portraits along the Dean’s Office on the second floor of the MEB were Young’s idea. He was inspired after visiting Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
“I came home and said, ‘we gotta have that for Hawaiʻi.’”
The Dean’s office lobby features paintings by Linus Chao, honoring the leaders who have guided Hawaiʻi’s only medical school for the past sixty years. After Chao passed away, Young asked Brook Kapūkuniahi Parker to paint Shomaker’s portrait.
"History has always been important to me," he said. "If you don't reflect on your history, you never know which direction to take for the future."
Young hopes the portraits remind students, faculty, and visitors of the legacy each dean has left. At the unveiling, he shared a short history about each dean’s portrait, finishing with Dean Shomaker.
“ If you'll notice, every portrait is rather formal,” Young began. “When I had the artist come in, I wanted him to meet Sam, and Sam told me that he wanted his portrait to be somewhat informal, so that's why he's wearing an aloha shirt. He's also wearing a maile lei. But it was very important to Sam that we talk about what was very important to him, and that was to make sure that the people in the underserved areas of Hawaiʻi were taken care of. Hence, the background of that shows the landscape of rural Hawaiʻi.”
"I want people to know that I feel a part of this place," Shomaker said. "I have spent time working in neighbor island settings, and neighbor islands are just as important as Oʻahu in my view of the world."
The setting wasn’t chosen for appearance alone. It shows one of Shomaker’s main goals since becoming dean in 2024: improving healthcare access for rural and underserved communities across Hawaiʻi.
"I wanted people to get to know me on an informal basis because that's kind of the way I roll," he said. "I do not dwell on formality, and so I think this picture says a lot about my personality. I'm really living my dream right now. I can't think of a higher professional honor than being chosen to be the dean of what I think is one of the most special medical schools in the world right here at JABSOM."
